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Individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been reported to be at an increased risk of infertility and sexual dysfunction. Although the relationship between them remains unclear, IBD severity is suspected to affect hormone levels and fertility. To analyze the impact of IBD severity on semen parameters and sex hormone levels in ulcerative colitis-type IBD (UC-IBD), we conducted a cross-sectional study involving 120 patients with UC-IBD in Adam Malik General Hospital, Medan, Indonesia. The patients were classified into three groups based on the Mayo score for UC, followed by a comparison of various semen and hormone parameters among these groups. In addition to the cross-sectional analysis, a simple correlation test was conducted irrespective of the patient grouping. Sperm concentration, motility, and morphology were found to decline significantly with an increase in IBD severity. Without classifying patients with IBD into subgroups, the Mayo score showed negative correlations with sperm concentration (r = −0.375, P < 0.0001), rapid progressive motility (r = −0.660, P < 0.0001), free testosterone (r = −0.732, P < 0.0001), and total testosterone (r = −0.721, P < 0.0001), and positive correlations with immotile sperm (r = 0.660, P < 0.0001), abnormal morphology (r = 0.657, P < 0.0001), and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG; r = 0.278, P = 0.002). Sperm concentration, motility, and morphology declined significantly with the severity of IBD. This study suggests a significant negative impact of IBD severity on semen quality and sex hormones.

Miniaturized, specific, rapid response and economical biosensors are finding applications in biotechnology, environmental studies, agriculture, food inspection and safety, disease diagnosis and medical utilities. Of the many categories of biosensors, optical biosensors have brought about an extra edge in sensing applications due to their selective, rapid and extremely sensitive measurements. Biosensors are analytical tools used to detect specific analytes such as cholesterol, urea, etc. having biomolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates as key element for detecting these analytes along with a transducer and a data analysis and visualization tool. In case of optical biosensors the analyte is detected using light with either label based or label free techniques. In this paper some of the marked advances in the last decade in the field of optical biosensors have been reviewed with an emphasis on their fabrication approaches and growing application areas. Along with some of the carefully selected article on new developments in optical biosensors through the last decade, a brief historical review of optical biosensors since the breakthrough in optical biosensors in 1970s has also been presented. Another focus of the current review is the classification of biosensors, typical structures along with emerging developments in optical biosensing that are likely to impact the current decade. Major application areas and emerging applications through the last decade have been outlined to present a clear picture on the versatility of optical biosensors. Finally, the review also considers the challenges and future of emerging optical biosensing technologies in the current decade.

This manuscript presents a ring-core Bragg Fiber (RC-BF) for orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes propagation and supercontinuum generation. The proposed RC-BF is composed of alternating layers of soft glasses SF57 and LLF1 to render high nonlinearity to the fiber. Mode analysis using full-vectorial finite element method resulted in obtaining HE/EH modes to support vector modes as well as orbital angular momentum modes. The optimized fiber supports 22 OAM modes and exhibits a zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDW). The small effective area of Fiber 3 aided in achieving the highest nonlinearity, $\gamma $ = 91.51 $\text{W}^{-1}$ km $^{-1}$ . A near-infrared supercontinuum is generated with a 35 dB flatness over a bandwidth of $\sim $ 1087 - 2024 nm in a 20 cm long RC-BF using a chirp-free hyperbolic secant pulse of width 200 fs and peak power of 5 kW.

This work presents the first instance of a silica few-mode microstructured optical fiber (MOF) being successfully fabricated with a hollow GeO2-doped ring core and by strongly inducing twisting up to 790 revolutions per meter. Some technological issues that occurred during the manufacturing of the GeO2-doped supporting elements for the large hollow cores are also described, which complicated the spinning of the MOFs discussed above. We also provide the results of the tests performed for the pilot samples—designed and manufactured using the untwisted and twisted MOFs described above—which were characterized by an outer diameter of 65 µm, a hollow ring core with an inner diameter of 30.5 µm, under a wall thickness of 1.7 µm, and a refractive index difference of Δn = 0.030. Moreover, their geometrical parameters, basic transmission characteristics, and the measurements of the far-field laser beam profile patterns are also provided.

This work presents the design and simulation of an all-optical sensor for detection of cancer cells. The proposed device is based on the surface plasmon resonance effect on a spiral shaped photonic crystal fiber structure. The finite element method (FEM) based simulations are carried out for the different cancer cells, such as HELA, Basal, Jurkat, and MDA-MB-231, MCF7, and PC12 detection. The sensor has shown the maximum sensitivity of −289 RIU−1 for the refractive index of the detection of breast cancer cell with the resolution of 2.33 × 10−4. The sensor is effective for the refractive index range of 1.36 to 1.401.The structure is based on spiral shaped photonic crystal fiber, and has shown promising linear sensing response to support the practical feasibility of the device. The proposed sensor design is effective in detecting cervical cancer, skin cancer, blood cancer, breast cancer type 1, breast cancer type 2, and adrenal gland cancer.

The photodissociation dynamics of1,2-cyclohexanedione (CHD), whichexists in enolic form in gas phase, is studied using pulsed laserphotolysis (LP)-laser induced fluorescence (LIF) “pump-and-probe”technique at room temperature. The nascent state distribution of theOH radical, formed after initial photoexcitation of the molecule toit is (π, π*) and Rydberg states, is determined. The initial(π, π*) and Rydberg states are prepared by excitationwith the fourth harmonic output of Nd:YAG (266 nm)/KrF (248 nm) andArF (193 nm) lasers, respectively. The ro-vibrational distributionof the nascent OH photofragment is measured in collision-free conditionsusing LIF. The OH fragments are formed in the vibrationally cold stateat all the above wavelengths of excitation but differ in rotationalstate distributions. At 266 nm photolysis, the rotational populationof OH shows a curvature in Boltzmann plot, which is fairly describedby two types of Boltzmann-like distributions characterized by rotationaltemperatures of 3100 ± 100 and 900 ± 80 K. However, at 248nm photolysis, the rotational distribution is described by a singlerotational temperature of 950 ± 80 K. The spin–orbit andΛ-doublets ratios of OH fragments formed in the dissociationprocess are also measured. The average translational energy in thecenter-of-mass coordinate, partitioned into the photofragment pairsof the OH formation channels, is determined to be 12.5 ± 3.0,12.7 ± 3.0, and 12.0 ± 3.0 kcal/mol at 266, 248, and 193nm excitation, respectively. The energy partitioning into variousdegrees of freedom of products is interpreted with the help of differentmodels, namely, statistical, impulsive, and hybrid models. To understandthe nature of the dissociative potential energy surface involved inthe OH formation channel, detailed ab initio calculations are performedusing configuration interaction-singles (CIS) method. It is proposedthat at 266 nm photolysis, the OH fragment is formed from two differentexcited state structures, one with a strong H bonding, similar tothat in the ground state, and another without effective H bonding,whereas, at 248 nm photodissociation, it seems that the OH formationoccurs mainly from the excited state, which lacks effective H-bonding.At 193 nm excitation, the initially prepared population in the Rydbergstate crosses over to a nearby σ* repulsive state along theC–O bond, from where the dissociation takes place. The exitbarrier for the OH dissociation channel is estimated to be 14 kcal/mol.The existence of dynamical constraint due to strong hydrogen bondin the ground state is effectively present in the dissociation processat 266 and somewhat deficient at 248 nm photolysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photodissociation dynamics of fumaryl chloride (ClCOCHCHCOCl) has been studied in a supersonic molecular beam around 235 nm using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) time-of-flight (TOF) technique by detecting the nascent state of the primary chlorine atom. A single laser has been used for excitation of fumaryl chloride and the REMPI detection of chlorine atoms in their spin−orbit states, Cl (2P3/2) and Cl* (2P1/2). We have determined the translational energy distribution, the recoil anisotropy parameter, β, and the spin−orbit branching ratio for chlorine atom elimination channels. To obtain these, measured polarization-dependent and state-specific TOF profiles are converted into kinetic energy distributions, using a least-squares fitting method, taking into account the fragment recoil anisotropies, βi. The TOF profiles for both Cl and Cl* are found to be independent of laser polarization; i.e., β is well characterized by a value of 0.0, within the experimental uncertainties. Two components, namely, the fast and the slow, are observed in the translational energy distribution, P(ET), of Cl and Cl* atoms, and assigned to be formed from different potential energy surfaces. The average translational energies for the fast components of the Cl and Cl* channels are 14.9 ± 1.6 and 16.8 ± 1.6 kcal/mol, respectively. Similarly, for the slow components, the average translational energies of the Cl and Cl* channels are 3.4 ± 0.8 and 3.1 ± 0.8 kcal/mol, respectively. The energy partitioning into the translational modes is interpreted with the help of various models, such as impulsive and statistical models. Apart from the chlorine atom elimination channel, molecular hydrogen chloride (HCl) elimination is also observed in the photodissociation process. The HCl product has been detected, using a REMPI scheme in the region of 236−237 nm. The observation of the molecular HCl in the dissociation process highlights the importance of the relaxation process, in which the initially excited parent molecule relaxes to the ground state from where the molecular (HCl) elimination takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]